On the menu today: More Russian oil refineries are blowing up because of Ukrainian drones, and the lines for suddenly scarcer gasoline in Russia are getting longer, but Vladimir Putin insists everything is fine. In Ankara, Turkey, President Trump is still talking about controlling Greenland, and he has suddenly discovered that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted to uphold its part of a bargain. Meanwhile, at home, there’s good reason to wonder if Graham Platner will withdraw from Maine’s Senate race, and spotlighting an easily overlooked detail in Politico’s article about Jenny Racicot’s accusations against Platner. Read on.
Putin’s in Denial
It’s not just that the invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year, is going badly for Russia. It’s that it’s now going badly in ways the typical resident of Moscow or Saint Petersburg can see. As of late June, “More than 55 of Russia’s 83 regions and federally designated cities were reporting either government-imposed restrictions or shortages due to fuel company supply problems.” Even in the capital, residents are waiting for hours to buy gasoline.
Russia’s largest oil refinery — 1,500 miles from Ukraine in Siberia! — was hit by drones and has halted operations Tuesday. Yesterday, the Ukrainians claimed they used drones to hit eight Russian shadow fleet vessels in one night. In March, Russia was producing about 120,000 tons of gasoline per day in March; by June, that was down to 90,000 tons per day.
The message from Vladimir Putin is that this is all under control.
“There has been damage, but all affected facilities are being quickly restored, and the problems that arise are not critical,” Putin said in an interview with a Russian journalist on June 28. “Everything is operating steadily and with a substantial margin of resilience.”
Even more than at the start of the invasion, there’s good reason to wonder just what Russia’s military leaders are telling Putin about the war. In that same interview, Putin referred to the “Ukrainian armed forces’ catastrophic manpower shortage” and said he had seen no sign of Ukrainians gaining territory.
During that television interview, Putin gave what seemed like a detailed update on the war; the problem was that none of it lines up with local reports. As the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War summarized July 3, “Even including partially infiltrated settlements does not match Putin’s fabricated reality.”
This is not the first time ISW has noticed that Russia’s lines on battle maps don’t line up with the battle lines in reality. Back on May 28:
The Russian military command’s exaggerated claims about the Kupyansk area since late Summer 2025 show a larger pattern within the Russian military of misrepresenting the battlefield geometry at the highest levels. [Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery] Gerasimov and other senior Russian officials have repeatedly presented inaccurate situation reports about the Kupyansk direction. Gerasimov claimed in late August 2025 that Russian forces had seized approximately half of Kupyansk. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in early October 2025 that Russian forces seized two-thirds of Kupyansk, and Gerasimov claimed in late October 2025 that Russian forces had surrounded 5,000 Ukrainian troops in Kupyansk and on the eastern (left) bank of the Oskil River east of the town. Gerasimov subsequently claimed in late November 2025 that Russian forces had fully seized Kupyansk, and Putin claimed at that time that 3,500 Ukrainian troops remained trapped on the eastern bank of the Oskil River.
And then, in December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited to Kupiansk and took a selfie to show the city was not only still under Ukrainian control, but that it was secure enough for the head of state to visit it.
Putin may well be delusional, but it’s just as likely that he’s getting fictional happy talk during his briefings on the war and choosing to repeat them to the world.
Still, at some point, Putin must recognize that he’s been getting told that victory is imminent for more than four years now. (Particularly if he’s been listening to Tucker Carlson’s favorite war analyst, Douglas Macgregor.) The Russian military has supposedly been on the verge of a complete triumph for nearly half a decade, but somehow never seems to get there. At what point does Putin start to realize what he’s getting told never seems to add up?
This is why we ought to be concerned by a recent report in the Daily Telegraph stating that the U.S. government has warned Poland that Russia is planning an armed “provocation” on Polish soil to test NATO resolve. The options could include missiles and drones targeting Polish critical infrastructure, or Russian soldiers could cross the border into NATO territory. “The goal of the Russian provocation would be to escalate tensions and force Western allies to suspend aid to Ukraine. It could be launched in a matter of months.”
That might seem crazy, but launching the largest land war in Europe since World War II seemed crazy, too, and Putin pulled the trigger on that one. Desperation can make a dictator do some wildly reckless things.
In May, I visited Lublin, Poland, home to the joint Polish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian brigade, established in 2014 that mostly does joint training operations. There I met a member of the Ukrainian army who asked to be identified only by his call sign — “Lux,” a 30-year-old from Sumy from the 95th Airborne Brigade. Lux told me that earlier in the war, when his unit captured Russian soldiers, the Russians believed they had been fighting NATO and Americans.
In other words, some Russian soldiers think they’re already in a shooting war with NATO. An armed incursion into Poland might not seem all that different — even if Poland has taken measures to prepare, like building an extensive new border fence.
Maybe the talk of some provocative attack on Poland is just more saber-rattling from a rapidly declining military power stuck in a quagmire.
Throughout Trump’s second term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signaled he wants to draw down as many troops from the European continent as possible. The good news was that in May, Trump said he wanted to station another 5,000 troops in Poland. The bad news is that not a lot has happened since that announcement; the Pentagon has offered no details on where those troops would come from or when they might deploy.
Wouldn’t it be preferable to have more U.S. troops hanging around with our eastern NATO allies instead of fewer, to send a clear signal to Moscow that any provocation would be asking for a lot more trouble than they can handle?
Trump Is Being His Usual Self at the NATO Summit
Trump is in my old haunt of Ankara, Turkey, for that NATO summit.
If Trump has any interest in the changing situation in Russian’s invasion, he’s hiding it well.
Instead, Trump is once again talking up the prospect of annexing Greenland from Denmark, declaring the massive island “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.”
And while nothing is final until the delivery is made, Trump seems, at minimum, to be open to selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey:
It’s a decision we’re going to make, right? We have a very good relationship. I would think that many people — I can tell you, many people, including the people sitting right here — thinks, why wouldn’t we do that? We have a better relationship with Turkey and Turkey’s been in many ways much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal. So yeah, it’s something, certainly we would consider. It’s a great plane. It’s the best — currently, the best plane by far and it’s certainly something we will consider. Yeah.
The editors of NR lay out why that is a terrible idea: “In addition to its illicit support for Islamist terrorists, Turkey’s warm relationship with America’s near-peer competitors should bar it from accessing America’s most technologically advanced weapons platforms . . . providing Turkey with F-35s would needlessly jeopardize American security and the lives of its service personnel.”
In other news, the president has very belatedly realized that the Iranian mullahs are not trustworthy negotiating partners:
“They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people,” Trump said. “Far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars . . . there’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
“They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time. They’re a bunch of lying guys,” Trump said. “They’re bad people, and frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them. Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it.”
If only someone could have warned him!
Is Graham Platner Really on His Way Out?
I think our Phil Klein is correct; there is a not-so-small chance that in the coming days, Graham Platner will refuse to withdraw from the U.S. Senate race in Maine and force his state’s Democrats to choose between voting for him or acquiescing to another term for GOP incumbent Susan Collins.
Under state law, Maine’s Democratic Party can replace Platner as its Senate candidate if he A) withdraws or B) dies. (If I were Platner, I’d be careful around any staffers named von Stauffenberg.)
The law doesn’t say anything about what to do if the party is far-too-belatedly mortified that it has nominated a psychopathic Nazi rapist.
Phil writes:
He knows that if he steps aside, he will be remembered forever as the guy who had to drop out after being credibly accused of rape, which will convince everybody that the accusations about him are true.
If he holds on, however, Democrats will be stuck with him after next week. Given how negative partisanship works, the left-wing tilt of the state, and the control of the Senate at stake, it’s easy to see Democratic voters talking themselves into the idea that they have to suck it up and support Platner. If Republicans control the Senate, Trump could still confirm Supreme Court justices, lower court judges, and any other nominees. So it’s plausible that Maine remains a competitive race even with Platner. If it comes to October and the seat remains crucial to Democrats retaking the Senate, let’s see if the national committees stick to their pledges not to support him.
Sure, in a general election matchup, Collins will crack Platner like a freshly boiled lobster claw, but afterwards he’ll be able to go on certain podcasts and claim that “the Establishment,” and oligarchs and AIPAC conspired to defeat him by getting everyone he’s ever known to make false accusations against him. And if all else fails, he can always flee to Argentina.
ADDENDUM: An easily overlooked detail in Politico’s article about Jenny Racicot’s accusations against Platner:
Racicot said she was contacted by The New York Times in the spring and shared off the record that Platner had assaulted her. She told the Times that she had some positive memories of her relationship with Platner but thought he did not respect women and had cut off contact with him after an incident in 2021 when Platner had come over drunk; but the Times article stated that Racicot “declined to elaborate” about what had happened, only describing his behavior as “reckless” and “unsettling.”
A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment.
So, at least some reporters at the New York Times knew about Racicot’s accusation of rape but could not quote her without her being willing to go on the record. Those same reporters chose to make one of Platner’s other exes, Lyndsey Fifield, the focus of the story, and made sure to identify Fifield as “a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns.” Fifield recently revealed she gave the Times the names of five friends to corroborate her accounts of her relationship with Platner. The Times didn’t call three of them. The Times wrote that they “could not corroborate the physical altercations or the most controversial comments she described.”
The purpose of the Times story was to paint Fifield as an unreliable accuser, even though another of Platner’s exes had told them he raped her.